How to Bulk Import Customer Contacts from a Spreadsheet
Building a customer database is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Whether you're planning to send promotional emails, SMS campaigns, restock notifications, or simply keep customer records organized, adding your contacts to Uzanga makes managing customer relationships much easier. While you can add customers individually, businesses with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of contacts will save a significant amount of time by importing them in bulk using a spreadsheet.
Option 1: Add Customers One by One
If you only have a few contacts to add, you can navigate to the Customers section and click Add Customer. This allows you to manually enter each customer's details individually.
Option 2: Import Customers in Bulk
For larger customer lists, the fastest approach is to download Uzanga's customer import template, fill it with your customer information, and upload everything at once. This eliminates the need to repeatedly fill out customer forms and allows you to import hundreds or thousands of contacts in just a few minutes.
Download the Customer Import Template
From your Uzanga admin dashboard, navigate to Customers and click Download CSV Template. This template contains all the required columns needed for importing customer records into your store.
Use Google Sheets for Best Results
After downloading the template, it's recommended that you open it using Google Sheets rather than Microsoft Excel.
Google Sheets tends to preserve phone number formatting more reliably, while Excel may automatically modify phone number formats in ways that can cause import issues later. Using Google Sheets helps ensure your customer data is uploaded correctly.
To open the template in Google Sheets, create a new spreadsheet, click File, then Import, select Upload, choose your downloaded CSV template, select Replace Current Sheet, and complete the import.
Fill in Your Customer Information
Once the template has been imported, you'll see several columns that need to be completed.
These include First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone Number, Business Notes, Promotional Email Opt-In, and any other fields included in the template. Populate each row with your customers' details using information from your contacts list or existing records.
When entering phone numbers, make sure they are formatted correctly using the international format, for example +2547XXXXXXXX. This helps ensure SMS campaigns and customer communications work properly after import.
Quickly Fill Repeating Values
If multiple customers share the same values in certain columns, such as consent settings or promotional email preferences, you don't need to type the same information repeatedly.
Simply enter the value once, select the cell, and drag the small fill handle downward to automatically copy that value across multiple rows. This can significantly speed up the process when importing large customer lists.
Save the Spreadsheet as a CSV File
After completing the template, download or export the spreadsheet as a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file. This is the file format required by Uzanga's customer import tool. Saving the file in any other format may prevent the import from working correctly.
Upload Your Customer List
Return to your Uzanga admin dashboard and navigate back to the customer import section.
You can either upload your completed CSV file or use the available option to paste customer phone numbers directly. For most businesses, uploading the spreadsheet will be the fastest and most efficient method.
Select your file and proceed to the preview step. Uzanga will display the customers that are about to be imported, allowing you to verify the information before completing the process. If any contacts already exist in your database, Uzanga will identify them during the preview stage.
Confirm the Import
Once you've reviewed the preview and confirmed everything looks correct, complete the import.
After processing, refresh your customer list and you'll see your newly imported contacts available inside your Uzanga account, ready to be used for email marketing, SMS campaigns, customer management, and future sales activities.
Final Thoughts
Bulk customer import makes it easy to move your existing customer database from spreadsheets into Uzanga. Instead of manually creating customer records one at a time, you can upload large contact lists in a single operation and immediately begin using them for marketing and customer engagement.
If you've been storing customer details in Excel, Google Sheets, or other systems, this feature is the fastest way to get your customer database organized and working for your business.